


Nothing Ventured

by omnishambles



Category: A Knight's Tale (2001)
Genre: Emotional Turbulence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hero Worship, M/M, fun times in 1372, handjobs, sort of??, the gang!, unexpected sincerity, unrequited hero worship? is that a thing?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:15:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21582100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omnishambles/pseuds/omnishambles
Summary: Here, at the centre of these people, all of them desperate for one drop of Will’s attention, this moment of excitement and pride that the two of them share feels somehow private. But of course, Geoffrey already knows that that is Will’s peculiar gift, better and more enduring than bravery or physical skill or any of the rest of it: Will is sincere.
Relationships: Geoffrey Chaucer/Wat (A Knight's Tale), Geoffrey Chaucer/William Thatcher, Jocelyn/William Thatcher
Comments: 12
Kudos: 50





	Nothing Ventured

**Author's Note:**

> I watched this film with [ailcia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ailcia) and [equestrianstatue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/equestrianstatue) back in, what, February? Immediately went mad and wrote fic, and it only took me nine months to finish it. BEHOLD MY HUMAN CHILD
> 
> Re. the title: apparently the first known reference to the saying 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' is in "The Reeve's Tale" by Chaucer, which I find quite funny. If I ever write in this fandom again it'll be all about him coining various famous phrases. 'That's a good one Geoff, you should write that down'

Everyone agrees that jousting is the event Will should focus on except, secretly, Geoffrey. He can’t fault the logic: the joust is more prestigious, better remunerated, and Will’s good at it – he wins. Because he is brave, because he keeps his eyes raised when others bow their heads, because he has drilled the technique into himself. But he finds Will’s sword fighting so much more compelling to watch. In these matches, Will is driven by pure instinct – an instinct from somewhere deep inside himself – and it is like poetry to watch. When Will competes at sword fighting, Geoffrey can’t look away.

The last match at Lagny-sur-Marne, he stands at the side with Roland beside him, both of them breathing in time with the swing of Will’s sword, and tries not to watch too obviously. It’s like a dance, two bodies moving against each other in the ring, the rhythm of the way they meet and part - like watching a bird drop out of formation or take flight.

‘You’ve got him,’ says Roland, so quiet that only Geoffrey can hear. ‘You’ve got him.’

And then Will _has_ got him, and that’s that, Geoffrey’s rush of pride and relief tempered only slightly by disappointment. It’s over. He steps into the ring and lifts Will’s arm above his head in one smooth motion, turning him about slightly, towards where the crowd is baying loudest.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he shouts above the din. ‘Your champion, Sir Ulrich!’

He’s supposed to say something better than that, but he’s been wrong-footed by his own focus, can’t quite remember how he’s supposed to do this. It doesn’t matter: the crowd has gone wild. At least he said the right name.

Will’s already a favourite here, trailing glories from his first victories at Rouen, but not just that. He’s young and beautiful and nobody knows who he is: Geoffrey could do almost nothing and these people would still work themselves into a frenzy. Will attracts adulation wherever he goes, like he’s built for the purpose. There’s a young woman swooning a foot away, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed. He lifts the front of his helmet and turns to look at Geoffrey, grinning. Geoffrey grins back.

Here, at the centre of these people, all of them desperate for one drop of Will’s attention, this moment of excitement and pride that the two of them share feels somehow private. But of course, Geoffrey already knows that that is Will’s peculiar gift, better and more enduring than bravery or physical skill or any of the rest of it: Will is sincere.

Geoffrey drops his arm, palm clammy with Will’s sweat, and with the sun in his eyes he watches Will walk out of the ring, pursued by cheering and noise and love. Roland is on his right, shaking him for joy, and Kate on his left, already checking that his armour has held, making adjustments. The crowd follows behind, as if drawn to him. And Geoffrey watches.

He never really understood the point of knights before. Performatively masculine bullshit for noblemen with nothing more about them than inheritance, the kind of men who’d love nothing more than to slay a good dragon, show the world what they’re really made of. Well, there are no dragons. Being a person is more complicated than that. Most knights, he’s always thought, are men who want to be unreal, be made into fictions – men who want to symbolise something – and he never wanted to make stories out of the kind of men who were already busy making their own stories. He never wanted to write about knights. Until Will.

There’s a thump on the back of Geoffrey’s head – not hard, but unbalancing – and he turns to find he’s not alone. Wat is looking at him.

‘You hit me,’ says Geoffrey.

‘Work to be done,’ says Wat, red-cheeked and combative. ‘Got to earn your keep. Just because Will’s soft doesn’t mean we all are.’

Geoffrey laughs and rubs his palms together, brushes away the dust clinging to his drying sweat. He laughs not because it’s funny, but because this fool hates to be laughed at, and he’s already decided he will love to do the things that this fool hates.

‘I wouldn’t think that,’ he says. ‘Don’t doubt, Wat: I know exactly the kind of man you are.’

Something strange flickers in Wat’s face, more complex than aggression, but he still sounds like he’s squaring up. ‘What kind is that?’ he says.

Geoffrey ducks his head. Why bother with the fight? Life’s too short.

‘I only meant to agree with you. That you aren’t as – soft. As Will. Haven’t you said a hundred times, you’d have thrown me to the loan sharks in his place?’

Again that flicker. Wat’s always stupid and aggressive but this is something different, like he _minds_ , but how could he? It’s only his own words quoted back to him, things he’s said half a dozen or so times over the few weeks they’ve known one another.

Wat opens his mouth, shuts it again. ‘Course,’ he says, and walks past Geoffrey, off behind the others, leaving him alone in the ring.

…

Will gets tourney champ at Lagny-sur-Marne, but their celebration in the tavern feels cursory at best. He doesn’t seem to want his victory, nor even apparently his princess, his conversation returning over and over again to the same subject: Adhemar. Geoffrey hadn’t liked him either (what’s to like?), but he doesn’t see the point in fixating on these things. Geoffrey’s motto is rather to enjoy life while the going is good. He knows how quickly luck can turn.

‘For God’s sake, have a drink,’ he says, pressing a pint into Will’s hand. ‘And will you take that bloody look off your face?’

‘Fine,’ says Will, laughing. He takes a pull on the beer. ‘Sorry.’

They watch Kate and Roland arm-wrestling for a while (best of three, surprisingly evenly matched) and then somebody says, ‘Where’s Wat?’ – and Geoffrey thinks, but doesn’t say, that he is probably in some kind of alleyway scrap with one of the local undesirables, because that is the kind of thing Wat does. Roland goes to look for him.

‘Tap in?’ says Kate.

‘You’re on.’

She beats him three to none.

‘Living Christ,’ Geoffrey mutters, cradling one arm with the other after his final and most painful defeat.

Roland sits back down heavily beside him. ‘Found him,’ he says.

‘You should have a go on Geoff,’ Kate tells him. ‘He’s a real holiday camp.’

‘I will remind you that I have other strengths,’ says Geoffrey.

‘Beyond the physical.’

‘Beyond, exactly, the physical.’

‘Where is he?’ asks Will.

Roland jerks a thumb towards the dimly lit back-end of the tavern, where Wat is – in a fight? Something very physical and complicated seems to be happening anyway, hard to describe and strangely compelling to watch. The others stop what they’re doing to spectate. Geoffrey lets his line of vision slip away, watches the expression on Will’s face and thinks about saying, _Why do you even like him?_ Luckily, he’s still sober and self-aware enough to damp it down.

He knows why people like Wat, who is funny, unpredictable, entertaining to have around. If he were honest, Geoffrey would have to admit that he dislikes Wat precisely because he is, himself, disliked; dislikes him with the most immature part of himself, the part that showboats and wants everybody to tell him how wonderful he is. He’s smart enough not to give that part any more leeway than he can avoid. He keeps quiet.

When Wat gets back to the table, everyone cheers.

‘Did you win?’ asks Roland.

‘Do you know,’ he says, ‘I honestly have no idea?’

They get pissed. By the time they leave, they’re singing victory songs, all except Will, and at first Geoffrey assumes that that’s because Will’s too modest to sing his own victory songs, but then on the walk home Will throws an arm round Geoffrey’s shoulders and says, ‘I was horrible to her, wasn’t I? I was horrible.’ And Geoffrey realises it’s not Adhemar that Will’s been thinking of these last few quiet hours.

‘It wasn’t, perhaps, your finest hour,’ Geoffrey concedes. ‘But you care for Jocelyn, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ says Will, a low, animal whine in Geoffrey’s ear, knocking their heads together like children keeping secrets. ‘If only I’d asked you first. If only you could tell me exactly what to say to her whenever I open my bloody mouth.’

…

They’re walking through the low flat countryside in brilliant sunlight, on to the next tournament, and Roland is talking to Geoffrey about tourney women. He’s an old romantic, from a traditional sort of family, and the whole scene clearly fascinates him: the eligible ones, the married, the somewhere-in-between. Kate rolling her eyes is almost a physical force beside them, so Geoffrey’s trying to nudge the conversation onto safer territory when Roland says, ‘Can I ask a personal question?’

Geoffrey laughs. They’ve been sleeping in the same pile of furs in Will’s tent for weeks with barely a moment to themselves. The idea there might be anything _too personal_ by now is laughable.

‘Why’s that funny?’

‘No reason. Course you can.’

‘Well, I…’ Roland’s voice is faltering, awkward. Geoffrey turns to look at him. ‘Would you… Would you ever want to get married?’

‘Ah,’ says Geoffrey. ‘Can’t. I’m married already.’

‘What?’

Wat’s voice comes from behind them. Geoffrey and Roland both turn to look. He’s been walking back there with Will for the last mile or so, bickering about a huge bird they saw (‘it _was_ a kite you blind genuine imbecile,’), Geoffrey hadn’t even realised he was listening. Wat’s eyebrows have just about disappeared.

‘I know,’ says Geoffrey, ‘who’d have me.’

Wat laughs loudly and says, ‘Yeah,’ but Kate interrupts.

‘Look,’ she says. They’re just over the crest of the hill and now the makeshift settlement of the tourney at Blanquefort is spread out below them like a perfect miniature, dark red flags fluttering in the soft, late-summer breeze. All of this pomp and noise and effort, just waiting for them. Waiting for Will.

‘Here we go again,’ says Will softly. Geoffrey looks at him. He must be tired, but he doesn’t seem it: there’s the same liquid readiness in his limbs as always, same eagerness in the set of his mouth. Even at this distance from a fight he looks ready – looks excited. The late afternoon sunlight has made him golden. He looks like a classical hero carved from something, skin of marble; in that moment, Geoffrey feels a ridiculous urge to reach out and rest his palm on the curve of Will’s cheek, to reassure himself the skin there is still warm and human. Obviously, he doesn’t do it.

…

Will is brilliant at Blanquefort, brilliant at Margaux, better in each tourney than the last. By the time they reach Bordeaux, the five of them are full of hope and camaraderie, drunk on success and also, most evenings, on actual wine, which is even better. It isn’t until one late night in Bordeaux that Geoffrey spots it.

They’re drinking in the tavern, it’s late but still incredibly busy, they have a nice little table in the corner and three bottles of wine left and they are playing some ridiculous fucking drinking game that Kate can’t quite get them to learn the rules of, all of them hooting with laughter, and then Geoffrey notices that Will isn’t. It’s unmistakeable, the flash of melancholy on his face when he thinks nobody is watching, and now that he’s seeing it properly, Geoffrey knows he’s seen it there at odd moments all these last few weeks.

‘Hey,’ he says, and then Will is back – the brilliant, unflappable, heroic version of himself that he gives them all as a gift, day after day. Like he never went anywhere.

‘Sorry,’ says Will, grinning. ‘Half asleep. Drunk probably. Piss’ll sort me out.’

But he isn’t drunk, always keeps himself a drink or two behind the rest of them. He hauls himself to his feet and totters off through the crush of people to the backyard. As Geoffrey watches him go, Wat’s low voice by his ear says, ‘You have to find out what’s wrong.’

Geoffrey turns and finds Wat’s face close to his own, blurry and sincere. Maybe they are all just too drunk? But Wat ploughs on, ‘You’ve noticed, haven’t you?’ and he has noticed, so he nods. Wat nods back.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘You’ve got to do something, Geoff. He’ll talk to you.’

Then he reaches out and cuffs Geoffrey on the shoulder with the butt of his palm, plaintive, not aggressive, and Geoffrey thinks: here is another fucking mystery.

Week on week, Wat’s chipped away at the little box Geoffrey had him filed away in – _stupid and aggressive_ – and now here is another thing to go on the mental list that Geoffrey hadn’t quite realised he’d been keeping: all Wat’s moments of kindness or insight; all his soft care of Will, careful and unselfconscious as an older brother; all the things about him that make no sense.

They look at each other for a moment, dumb, and then Geoffrey says, ‘Okay.’

He spends the rest of the evening waiting for his moment – he watches Will, and Wat watches him, he can feel eyes on the back of his head – but in the end he doesn’t have to do anything. Late, very late, Will leans across the table, grabs Geoffrey’s wrist and says, ‘What am I going to do about her?’

‘Kate?’

They are all, ostensibly, watching her get her round in, Roland and Wat betting on whether she’ll be able to, as she’d claimed, ‘charm Duke Berthold’s herald into buying it for me’; he’s been mooning after her all evening.

‘What? No.’ Will’s grip tightens. ‘ _Jocelyn_. What am I going to do about her?’

Ah. ‘Is it love, my friend?’ Will nods. ‘Are you sure?’ He nods again, like it hurts him, like it’s a pain that weakens him. ‘Then you should tell her.’

‘See,’ says Kate. ‘Told you.’ They turn to see her flushed and grinning, full tray of drinks in her hands. Duke Berthold’s herald is leaning on the bar behind her, looking several coins lighter and infinitely more hopeful. Roland groans loudly in frustration, like a wounded bear.

‘Shouldn’t have taken the bet,’ says Wat, laughing, but Geoffrey can feel, still, that he is watching the two of them talk.

Geoffrey wants to be away from them all, suddenly. He leans in close and says, ‘Listen,’ mouth to Will’s ear in the noise of the tavern. ‘How about a letter?’

…

After it’s done, Will seems happier than he has in God knows how long; all at once, there’s a lightness in his brow so obvious that it’s hard to see how they waited so long to do something about it.

Once they’ve finished the letter, it’s agreed that Wat will ride out with it in the morning; he goes back to the tent for an early night, Kate and Roland trailing after, but when Geoffrey says, ‘Shall we turn in too?’, Will looks at him like he’s mad.

‘How can I sleep? I am elated! I am brought to life by _love_.’ He looks manic. Still, Geoffrey’s always happy to have another. He shrugs and opens their final bottle of the rather lovely local red wine, carry-out from the pub. It feels just reckless enough to be exciting, without actually being a proper risk. After all, Will has no events the next morning, he can sleep until the afternoon if he wants to.

They drink the wine and talk about the tournament, other nobles, other events - and then it bursts out of Will like he’s been waiting hours to say it.

‘Tell me about love,’ he says, wide-eyed and sincere. ‘About your wife.’

Geoffrey barks a laugh, unthinking, and Will looks like a dog that’s been kicked.

‘You’re not unhappy?’ he says, like it’s awful, the worst thing he can imagine. He’s so young and sincere, it should be funny. Somehow it isn’t.

The light in the stable is soft from the low-burning candles. Soon the dawn will begin to nudge its way into the sky and the stable-hands will come through here, but for now they have the last hours of the night, and a third of a bottle of wine left to be drunk. Caught up in Will’s mood, Geoffrey feels happy and expansive.

‘No, of course not,’ he says softly, waving a hand, although he used to be. ‘It’s a marriage of convenience. We understand one another perfectly.’

And they do these days, most of the time. They adhere to their marriage vows by rarely speaking. They each do as they like. And she has the house.

This ghost of an answer seems to satisfy Will. ‘Good,’ he says, and then leans closer, like he’s betraying a confidence. His teeth are dark with wine. ‘Do you think the letter will work?’ he asks, low-voiced.

‘I do,’ says Geoffrey. ‘It is – sincere. Like you.’

‘But you wrote it.’

‘We all wrote it.’

Will shakes his head. ‘You always tell me what to say.’

Is that true? Geoffrey isn’t sure. He’s given him a few lines, a few specks of poetry here and there - not often, surely? He opens his mouth to deny it, but Will talks across him.

‘She loves your words as much as she’s ever loved me, you know.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘No – Geoff – I don’t mind.’ Will’s grinning, his face split open with it. ‘The words you put in my mouth – they make me feel--’

And then he leans forward, and Geoffrey wonders what he can possibly say that is as secret as this, that needs to be shared so quietly. He can feel Will’s breath warm across his cheeks, and then Will’s mouth, a soft pressure against his own.

Geoffrey’s mind races to catch up with what’s happening, but his body acts on instinct, every muscle straining towards Will; he sees an image of him writ in gold on horseback, stood against the sun the day they reached Blanquefort, and how can this be happening? How could he have walked into Geoffrey’s life from the pages of a storybook and made it golden light? Geoffrey slips a hand to the back of Will’s neck and kisses him back, softly, just for a moment.

And then he remembers that Will isn’t for him. Geoffrey is a writer; he knows how stories work. He pulls back, not ready to speak yet, but Will is still talking, like nothing ever happened to interrupt his train of thought.

‘I want to be the version of me that you create for her,’ he says. Geoffrey is still watching his mouth. ‘I want to be the person that you – think I am.’

‘For Jocelyn.’

Will sits back, tongue between his teeth, moistening his lips like he’s only just noticed that they kissed. He shakes his head once, to clear it. It doesn’t mean no. After a moment he says, ‘For Jocelyn. Of course.’ His voice is a little hoarse.

Geoffrey smiles. He reaches out and rests the palm of his hand against Will’s cheek, and their eyes meet. For a moment the sight of Will’s blown pupils, huge and dark in this fading light, makes his stomach lurch. He wonders if he’s going to regret this in the morning, if he even has the willpower to get that far – it would still be so easy to lean in and kiss Will properly. He is so good, so young, he just wants to be told who he is, and Geoffrey could do that. He could take him, have him. Just for a night.

The moment moves beyond them. Geoffrey lets it go.

‘You’re going to make each other very happy, Will.’ He takes his hand away. A light comes into Will’s eyes and Geoffrey knows he’s said the right thing, whether he wanted to or not.

‘She’ll like it, won’t she?’

‘She’ll love it,’ Geoffrey says, standing, looking out into the distance. ‘As the birds love the wind in the trees and as I love my bed. Goodnight.’

Will’s voice is quiet behind him. ‘Goodnight,’ he says.

Geoffrey walks out of the stables with no idea where he’s going except that he needs to put as much distance as possible between him and Will before he changes his mind. It will be hours before he sleeps.

…

The next morning, Wat sets off for Jocelyn on their only horse. Sitting up there, he pats the letter in his top pocket and waves to all of them, and winks, and then is gone. There’s something melancholy about watching him go that Geoffrey ascribes to his hangover and the sheer oddity of any of them being apart. Perhaps Wat’s growing on him. Ah well. So does moss, if you sit in it long enough.

The four of them load up their cart, which will have to be pulled by hand, and go over provisions for the journey. It will take a week or so to walk to Paris from here – but there are several camps going from Bordeaux that they can share meals with, or the occasional bottle from wine, and these roads should pose no danger. Duke Berthold’s herald informs them that morning with an excited wave that they, too, are headed towards Paris, and Kate goes scarlet all the way to her hairline.

‘Poor bloke,’ says Roland. ‘Three-wines-Kate is vicious.’

‘Hangover-Kate’s the one you should be really afraid of,’ she says.

‘I hope Wat will be all right, meeting us in Paris,’ Will says thoughtfully. ‘It’s a long way to travel alone.’

‘Him?’ Geoffrey shakes his head in disbelief. ‘It’s whoever he meets on the roads I’m scared for.’

Will laughs and claps him on the arm.

All morning, he has been absurdly, almost insultingly normal, utterly unphased by what passed between them last night. Perhaps he doesn’t remember – but that seems unlikely. Neither of them were _that_ drunk.

Possibly it just meant too little to Will to merit any guilt or awkwardness. Geoffrey hopes it’s that – rather than the feeling of having settled some kind of debt – that makes him treat it so lightly. He hates the thought of it having been a repayment for the letters Geoffrey has written him, the phrases he has given over, the poetry, the words of love – he hopes he’s never been obvious enough with his own heart for last night to be any kind of gift.

‘Come on then,’ says Will. ‘Off we go.’ He sets off ahead and, as always, the rest of them follow behind. Wherever he leads.

…

The night before they get to Paris, sleeping at the side of the road, Geoffrey dreams of Wat. In the dream, as in life, he is furious.

He is in a forest of tall trees, so impossibly high they seem to shut out all the light. The trees make it seem dark in the forest, but when Geoffrey looks up, he can see blue sky above, and daylight. There is a sound ahead of him, a thumping, thwacking, repetitious sound, and with the logic of dreams, he goes towards it.

There, at the centre of a clearing, is Wat. He has an axe in his hand and is chopping wood. He doesn’t look up.

Geoffrey’s seen Wat chop wood a hundred times before – lazily, reluctantly, in a hurry to get on to some preferable task – but never like this. The pile of wood will not go down, and Wat is growing angry. He makes a low, effortful sound as he works, going quickly, and the anger doesn’t make him stop, as it would in life. He doesn’t throw his axe on the ground and give up. He just gets angrier and more exhausted and keeps going.

It seems to go on for ages: hours of dream-time pass, and in the end, Wat is striking blows so hard that he cries out as he makes them, and Geoffrey is just watching. Wat sounds like an animal in pain.

Finally, Geoffrey remembers he can intervene. ‘Let me help,’ he says, but the words don’t come out right, and Wat can’t hear him. Or is he pretending that he can’t?

‘Wat,’ says Geoffrey, going over. Going towards him. Then he wakes up.

He’s rolled off his back, off the rug he sleeps on, and he’s lying with his face in the ground, nose full of mud softened by last night’s summer storm. A foot away, Roland is snoring. The sky is light before he falls asleep again.

…

They’re happy whenever Will wins – his victory is their victory, his heart is all their hearts – but still, Geoffrey would be lying if he said that winning their bet with the locals didn’t make it all the sweeter. After they’ve collected their winnings, the four of them sit in the corner of the pub toasting one another, Wat and Geoffrey and Kate and Roland, Wat talking Geoffrey’s ear off about the tavern he’s going to open and the food he’ll serve there and how he wants it to look. His opinions on curtains are far more developed than Geoffrey would have anticipated.

Will‘s getting bathed, but they’re expecting him, and after half an hour or so without any sign, Geoffrey excuses himself and goes out to look. He stops when he sees Jocelyn up ahead, going into Will’s tent.

Of course the letter worked. Why wouldn’t it? It had five people’s hearts inside it, their love for Will shoring up his love for Jocelyn. Geoffrey nods to himself, feels whatever he feels about it, and lets it go. Then he does the only thing left to him to do. He goes back to the pub.

‘Hey, you won’t believe what I’ve seen,’ he says, rictus grin on his cheeks, and when he tells them, they cheer, and then they all get absolutely smashed.

At some point, Roland cries, in a nice way. ‘We’re going home,’ he says softly, and Wat nods, not speaking, stroking his back with improbable tenderness. In the dark corners of the tavern people are fucking, people are fighting. Kate gets off with Duke Berthold’s herald. It’s carnage.

It’s a bit – it’s actually a bit much. All of it. It’s all a little bit too much.

Geoffrey knows that everything’s good and right and how it should be – narratively, he’s satisfied – but the incredibly strong fortified wine they’re all drinking has made everyone go strange and he can’t drink his own subtle hue of melancholy away.

After a while he slips away alone and goes to bed. He passes out as soon as he lies down.

…

Geoffrey wakes with a start a few hours later. It’s the darkest part of the night, he’s still drunk, and he can tell by the cold that the tent is empty. Moments from the preceding night resurface as disconnected images. He wonders where the others are – and then he spots a shape by the door, hunched, and for a moment it’s terrifying. When it moves, he realises it’s only Wat.

‘Christ, you scared the shit out of me,’ he says. Wat’s holding himself oddly, hunched over between Geoffrey and the lamp he’s holding, his body throwing strange shadows onto the walls of the tent.

‘Sorry I woke you,’ Wat replies. His voice is muffled. For a moment, Geoff remembers the dream he had a few nights earlier – the clearing, the axe – and hopes this isn’t another. But he feels awake. Wat turns, comes towards the pile of rugs they all sleep on, and with the lamp in this position, the image resolves itself into meaning.

‘You’re hurt,’ says Geoffrey.

Wat shakes his head, but it means _leave it_ , not _no_. He eases himself down to sit on the rug furthest away, but he’s being stupid and Geoffrey is nosy, so Geoff hauls himself unsteadily to his feet, walks over, and sits down opposite. Wat is focused on the distance, looking at nothing, presumably: just looking and looking into the dark beyond their little circle of light.

‘Bar fight?’ asks Geoffrey, trying not to sound like he’s taking the piss.

‘It wasn’t even about anything. There were three of them. I’m…’ Wat trails off, shakes his head. He’s the kind of drunk where he’s gotten there too fast and then sobered up too quickly from the shock and now he’s caught between the two extremes. Normal-adjacent, but a sip of anything would send him right back. It’s a place Geoffrey knows well. He’s done some of his best-worst gambling in this hinterland.

‘Show me,’ he says.

Wat looks like he’s going to resist – in fact, everything he’s ever known about Wat makes Geoffrey think he’s about to be told to fuck off – but then does exactly as he’s told, child-like, and peels off his shirt. His chest is blooming purple and blue, fresh bruises the colour of stamped-on berries. Geoffrey inhales, sharp and involuntary.

‘Quite a kicking you got yourself,’ he says, trying for lightness.

Wat shakes his head, like he deserved it. Maybe he did.

Geoffrey stands up and goes to the chest they keep supplies in. He always feels worse on a couple of hours’ sleep, drunker than ever, and it takes him a while to find the jar they keep in there, some kind of herb thing, he’s seen Will put it on his bruises. He brings it over and sits back down.

‘Know what this is?’ he says.

Wat frowns. ‘Well, I make it.’

‘You make this?’

‘Yeah? Pick the herbs and everything. Mum’s old recipe.’

Geoffrey’s surprised and wishes he could hide it better. He knows Wat cares for Will, takes care of him, but something about the maternality of this gesture is too much. He tries to picture Wat out in a glade, picking herbs for Will’s bruises like a story-book maiden, and can’t. He feels failed by his own imagination. He’ll have to try something else.

For a moment, they look at each other. Then Geoffrey says, ‘Arms up.’

Wat looks back levelly, like he can’t tell if he’s serious, but again he relents and lifts his arms. Geoffrey takes the muslin from the top of the jar and scoops out a little of the paste with his forefingers. It’s cold and fresh-smelling, like they’re deep inside a forest. Again, the image of the dream is with him, the glade, the axe; he blinks it away and reaches out to spread the mixture on Wat’s bruises. He can feel Wat’s eyes on him as he does it, feel him trying not to give away how much it hurts. He tries to be as gentle as he can.

It’s nice. Companionable. Geoffrey doesn’t mean to spoil it by talking, but then he’s saying, ‘I know you doubt me, Wat.’ This is the thing he’s wanted to say for months, forever, and he’s too drunk not to. ‘I know you think Will shouldn’t have done what he did.’ He’s referring to the gambling debts and they both know it. For a moment Geoffrey has a shiningly clear mental image of trying to do this with only one arm, short a pound of flesh.

‘No,’ Wat murmurs.

‘You do,’ says Geoffrey. ‘You think I’m arrogant and I don’t deserve you all and you’re probably right. But I’m so grateful for – for what Will did for me. For all of it. I promise I’ll never take it for granted. I’ll never take any of you for granted.’

‘No,’ says Wat again. Oddly, he looks like he’s going to cry. ‘I don’t think that. I…’ He trails off, and then covers the back of Geoffrey’s hand with his own, lays them both flat against the spider’s web of bruises on his rib cage. He’s staring at a fixed point somewhere over Geoffrey’s shoulder.

‘Sorry,’ he says falteringly. ‘That I – I’m – like this.’

Geoffrey isn’t sure what Wat’s apologising for. Getting into the fight? All that directionless aggression? Somehow it doesn’t seem the right moment to push him, _but what are you sorry_ for, _exactly?_ Geoffrey shakes his head, meaning not to worry about it, but Wat still isn’t looking at him, so he has to talk.

‘It’s okay,’ he says, which feels wrong, insufficient. Wordsmith lost for words. Geoffrey pulls his hand away, puts the jar down, makes a show of wiping his palms on Wat’s trousers. Wat breathes a laugh but it’s half-hearted and he still isn’t meeting Geoffrey’s eyes. Abruptly, Geoffrey digs his fingers in where they’re resting above Wat’s knee, and that does it, that makes him look, his expression is charged and unreadable and how is it only now that Geoffrey realises this was a strange thing to have done?

Geoffrey can hear Wat breathing high in his chest. The light from the lamp he brought in is guttering, fading. He wants to stop thinking. He eases his hand a little higher – the smallest amount, easily deniable – and Wat shivers. They’re looking into each other’s eyes and it feels so dangerous and he can’t stop himself, Geoffrey slides his hand up again, pushing higher and Wat nods, the smallest gesture, he could have imagined it but he’s doing this apparently, his hand is holding Wat’s cock through his clothes, and they’re both drunk but he’s hard already, getting harder.

The part of Geoffrey that’s always separate from himself wants to know why he’s doing this. Is he trying to cheer himself up? Does he actually want to? He honestly has no idea. He slips his hand inside Wat’s trousers.

‘Yes?’ he manages. It’s the first thing either of them have said for a while and it sounds animal, barely a word, full of wanting. He hears it and thinks: oh.

Wat thrusts up into his palm and hisses, ‘ _Please_.’

It’s enough. Geoffrey’s not alone with this, not imagining it, his head is spinning but he grips tight, a little tighter than he likes to be held himself, call it intuition, not that he’s thought about this before (has he thought about this before?) and brings Wat off with his hand, quick and silent except for the sound of Wat’s yearning gasps, a sound that goes straight to some part of Geoffrey he hadn’t known was there.

It doesn’t take long, perhaps a minute. Moments after Wat finishes, the failing light goes out. It would be funny if it wasn’t all so strange and unspoken, unspeakable. Wat leans forward, breathing hard, pushes their foreheads together and then kisses him, just once.

Geoffrey pulls away. It’s pure instinct, but he feels guilty about it straight away.

‘Do you – do you want—’ Wat’s voice is quiet, uncertain.

Geoffrey shakes his head, then realises Wat can’t see him in this darkness. He doesn’t know what he wants. Easier to say no. ‘You’re – hurt,’ he says. ‘You should get some rest.’

He hears Wat lie back and knows he could curl up next to him for a moment, that for some reason it’s up to him. How has he ended up leading this? Nevermind, he has, but he can’t bring himself to do anything more, god knows why. Still, he doesn’t want to be cruel. He reaches out in the dark to touch some chaste part of Wat and ends up brushing the hair back from his forehead.

In the darkness, he hears Wat’s voice, just above a whisper. ‘I missed you when I was away.’ This feels more intimate than anything they have just done.

‘Goodnight,’ says Geoffrey.

…

He wakes up feeling like he’s barely slept. His eyelids are raw and the tent is flooded with a thin, sickly light. It can’t be long after dawn.

He went to sleep as far away from Wat as was possible without actually going to bed in a different tent, but Wat probably hasn’t noticed – he’s flat out, curled in on himself, looking younger and softer than he does in his waking life. He’ll be sore today, Geoffrey remembers - but will he also be angry? He has a sudden, very clear mental image of Wat breaking his nose. He wonders what the others would say if they woke to find he’d fled the country.

He sits up. Kate and Roland are back, sleeping about a foot apart but, very sweetly, holding hands across the space between them. Geoffrey feels a rush of warmth and love for all of them, the idiots, and then an equally intense rush of nausea. He gets up and walks out of the tent. He turns his back on the camp, cords of smoke drifting lazily towards the heavens from extinguished fires, and goes into a nearby copse. There, he kneels in the earth and retches, but is not sick.

Geoffrey rests his forehead on a tree and breathes very deeply. It makes him feel better. He’s lived a long time with the recklessness of the itinerant gambler and he tries to call that feeling back to him: _oh well, what’s done is done, today’s a new day_ , and so on. But it’s hard. He thinks of Kate and Roland holding hands in their sleep. There haven’t been many times in Geoffrey’s life that he’s felt he had so much to lose.

Still. Things always look better after breakfast.

He finds a street vendor that’s open early, a queue of ragged looking footsman waiting by it, needing something to get them ready for the day, up hours before their masters have to be. He fell asleep in all his clothes, thank god, and there’s loose change in one of his pockets. He buys something, some kind of hot and unspecified meat (pork? God, he hopes it’s pork) and sits on a bench in the street to eat it.

When it’s finished he feels almost human. He spends the rest of his change on apples and bread rolls and takes them back to the tent, carrying them in the front of his shirt. When he gets in, everyone is awake and laughing – and Will is there, a rosy-cheeked picture of health and restraint. Everyone else looks unspeakably hungover.

‘Lifesaver,’ says Roland, as Geoff passes the food round.

Kate takes a bite of her apple and then puts it aside. ‘Maybe in a bit,’ she says.

‘What happened to all of you?’ Will asks, laughing.

‘That fortified wine,’ says Roland.

‘It was evil,’ says Wat, and he’s laughing too.

He seems fine. Everyone seems normal. But Geoffrey can feel Wat’s eyes on him when the others aren’t looking. He wishes he had the courage to meet them.

…

It’s days before they are alone again. Not until they make the port where they’ll be crossing to England.

Kate spots the sea first – a slender line of light across the horizon that digs a child’s noise out of her. Roland takes it up like a baton and then all of them are whooping and cheering like overgrown children, running towards the water in the fading light of day.

Geoffrey slows first, then Wat, and then the others are far ahead and the two of them fall into step beside each other. They’re both still laughing, lit up by the late afternoon sun, and Wat throws an arm round Geoffrey’s shoulders, carefree. Then he takes it away again.

‘Better get the horse,’ he says, and goes back to where he dropped its reins, where it is waiting.

Geoffrey laughs, watches him go, then looks back to the others, now also walking, a trio of shapes in the growing dusk. He stands where he is until Wat catches back up.

‘You waited,’ says Wat.

Geoffrey smiles and says nothing. He can’t think of anything to say, but hopefully the pause looks enigmatic. They walk on towards the sea in silence.

Wat says, ‘Be good to get home.’

‘Oh, certainly,’ says Geoffrey. ‘Nothing to like about sunshine, good wine and good food. Back to bonny old England it is.’

Another silence.

‘So,’ Wat begins, and then stops. He shakes his head.

Geoffrey looks round, but Wat’s staring straight ahead, watching the others with too much focus. Geoffrey wants to know what he was about to say, how he can tease it out of him. He needs to use this moment, say something about the other night, but he has no idea what. That they were drunk? It was a mistake? Somehow that doesn’t quite cover it. For once in his life, Geoffrey hopes somebody else will speak before he has to.

‘I wondered. Will you come to the tourney?’ Wat asks. ‘When we get to London?’

‘Will I…?’ It’s an insane question. They’ve talked of little else for months.

‘I just – your wife. Thought you might go home.’

Geoffrey’s so confused that he stops dead. Wat doesn’t immediately notice, gets about a foot further and then turns back. They’re over the crest of the hill now and they can really see the water, Wat backlit by it with an expression that is somehow sincere and defiant at the same time, daring Geoffrey to laugh at him for asking this, and then it tips over into something else. He’s getting cross. He drops the horse’s rope and gives it a pat, sending it on ahead, as though he doesn’t want the horse to hear this, which strikes Geoffrey as so funny that he starts laughing.

‘Oh right,’ says Wat, beginning to be really angry.

‘No, no,’ says Geoffrey, fighting his laughter down. ‘God, Wat, I’m not – it’s only a – it’s a marriage of convenience. Listen--’

Wat shakes his head, staring hard at the ground.

‘It’s not real,’ Geoffrey’s ploughs on. ‘It was about money, property, only that. We – listen—’

‘I didn’t mean…’

‘No. Hey.’ Geoffrey takes a step closer and Wat looks up at him. ‘We tried to make it real for a while but I… Well, I disgraced myself in a number of exciting ways--’

‘Gambling.’

‘Mmm. That was certainly one of them.’

He’s trying to be discreet – he could fill in any number of little indignities here, none of which he’s proud of – but it’s obvious that Wat is picturing something else. A slow, lascivious smile eases its way across Wat’s face, and Geoffrey feels it in the pit of his stomach. How stupid. How absurd – but, for reasons he will maybe never understand, he wants Wat to keep looking at him like that.

‘Anyway,’ he manages. ‘We’re estranged, so – I have nowhere to go – but where you all go.’

‘Good,’ says Wat, and laughs

Geoffrey laughs too, ducks his head, and then somehow they are standing close-by each other. A sound reaches them on the breeze, Will shouting up ahead, perhaps to them? They both look out to where the others are – a little way away, but still, they could turn back at any moment, call out, see them. Wat nods, once, and then he reaches out and presses his fingertips to the inside of Geoffrey’s wrist. Geoffrey shivers. It’s a small gesture but so strangely intimate.

‘Can I ask you something else?’

‘Course.’

Wat grins, chewing the inside of his lip, then shakes his head, steels himself. ‘I’d like to make you come later,’ he says quietly. ‘If we can find a moment. Alone.’

Geoffrey nods. ‘Yes,’ he says slowly. ‘I think we should do that. Yes.’

‘Oi,’ shouts Will, unmistakeable, and they both turn to look.

Wat tips his head. ‘Better go.’

They catch up to the others in silence.

…

At the port, they find a full boat and several hours’ wait til the next one. They all sit out on the road, except Roland, who says he will go down to the little town and sell their horse. Everyone pats it on the face to say goodbye.

‘It’s sad,’ says Wat, though he doesn’t look sad.

‘It’s not,’ says Roland, irritated. ‘We’ll get another one on the other side.’

Kate touches it mournfully on the nose. ‘Bye, horse,’ she says.

Geoffrey catches Wat’s eye, sat in the road; he knows they’re both thinking the same thing, but there is nowhere to go. They smile at one another briefly. Will is brooding. Wat gets their measly last supplies together into a sort of meal. One way and another, the evening passes.

By the time they get a crossing with room for all of them and their supplies, it is the dark, cold middle of the night.

‘Come on,’ says Roland. They trudge aboard, packs they’d been dozing against thrown over their backs. They are given one small room together, the five of them – it’s only a short crossing to England, then onto one of the river boats that will take them to London – and they sit back against the walls with their knees touching.

Geoffrey leans up against the corner, Wat beside him, pressing against him for moments at a time with the rhythm of the waves, rolling away, then back again. Geoffrey feels that all of himself, his whole bodily existence, has been reduced to an awareness of the heat emanating from Wat’s thigh. It is insane to be this conscious of another person and unable to do anything about it. It is insane, truly, for that person to be Wat. And here, like this, in the middle of all their friends – how can they not know what’s happening when it’s obvious that he has gone completely lunatic?

Still. His body wants what it wants. Geoffrey spends the next hour or so half-dozing, images burned onto the insides of his eyelids: their conversation on the shore, the way the last of the sunlight made the hair on Wat’s forearms look so pale it was almost blonde; slim wrists, hands, the thought of one of those hands being –

Geoffrey wakes and realises he must have been dreaming. Around them are the dark-wood walls of the boat, the smell of human bodies close together, sweat and something else, piss-smell of old wood. One low candle is burning close to the doorway, casting a guttering light across the sleeping faces of Kate, Roland and Will, leaned up against the opposite wall. They look dead out.

He knocks his knee against Wat’s and Wat blinks immediately awake, looking like Geoffrey feels: not entirely sure where he is.

Everyone else is asleep. What’s the harm?

Geoffrey leans over and puts his mouth to Wat’s ear. ‘Have you been thinking about me?’

He feels Wat’s cheek brush against his as he nods.

‘Remember everything you’re thinking. I want you to tell me about it later.’

Then he bites Wat very softly on the ear lobe, just to hear the bitten-off sound of his gasp.

He falls asleep again after that, and sleeps until they dock, the judder of the boat being roped up and the calls of the men above deck. He feels disorientated. Wat catches his eye briefly, but says nothing, his expression tired and intense. Geoffrey remembers with guilt that he had been dreaming of Will, of that night in the stable. He feels an odd spike of disloyalty. But mostly he feels desperate, like his body is a string pulled taut.

‘Come on,’ says Roland, and they go.

…

That night, after a day of harried tourney prep on a few snatched hours of sleep, they start drinking again. Everyone’s knackered, it’s stupid, but they’re home and buzzing with it, they can’t wait to be back in a proper London pub.

They’ve been apart all day, everyone set to different tasks – there was armour to be polished, horses obtained, tourneys entered, lodgings found – so when they meet again, somehow there’s a lot to say, even though they’ve barely spoken to anyone else for months. They’re all talking over each other, crowding into the corner of the pub, which is absolutely rammed, seven or eight deep at the bar. All except Wat, who’s quiet. He seems to have turned up in the kind of temper that is already a distant memory: the Wat of months ago, coiled up tight as a spring and ready to let go at any moment.

‘I’ll get the first round,’ says Geoffrey, and goes to join the enormous queue. He, on the other hand, feels light with elation. There’s a thrum of tension in his stomach, but it just adds depth to the _joy_ of it all, the muck and dirt and glory of London and the certainty that Will is going to win. Of course he is: they are victors, champions, a happy band of brothers on their own home ground.

There’s a lightness in his voice as he says, ‘Five, please,’ and while the barmaid pours he realises that it must be this, the same tension that’s making him feel alight and alive with energy, winding Wat up; if they wait too long to fuck, Wat will probably end up punching someone in the face, and it might very well be him. Not for the first time, he wonders what the hell he is doing.

‘Thanks,’ he says to the barmaid, and pays.

Everyone when he comes back with the drinks. There isn’t much space, but they’re leaned up against a wall, away from the buffeting of the crowd, and they toast each other. Geoffrey wants to say: look at this! Look at what you’ve done! He wants to shake Will by the shoulder, so he does. And they laugh and everyone toasts each other again, even though there’s something going in Wat’s jaw. The beer is awful and everyone’s delighted about it.

‘Home,’ says Roland. His eyes are shining.

This corner of the pub is profoundly dim, full of the rotten-wood smell of damp, spilled drinks and stray rain and bodies. It’s dreadful and yes, Roland’s right, it is home. If Geoffrey had been uncertain about coming back, he doesn’t feel that way now.

They get through their drinks fast, talking about nothing: Wat’s round, Will’s, and then Will goes to bed, ever-sensible, and it’s just the four of them left. ‘Right,’ says Roland, like: now the gloves are off. His turn to go to the bar and the place is still filling up, out-of-towners in for the tourney. Geoffrey can’t remember anymore how much he’s had to drink. He feels in control but the edges of himself are blurring.

Then, in the crush of people, trying to find everyone again on his way back from a piss, he feels it: a pressure against his back, different to the anonymous motion of the crowd, solid and deliberate. Hand on his hip, fingertips pressing just above the bone.

‘Outside,’ says Wat’s voice, close, through gritted teeth. ‘Now.’ His breath is warm against the curve of Geoffrey’s ear, and then it is gone. Geoffrey follows him, obviously.

They leave the pub, Wat leading and Geoffrey a few paces behind, not speaking. One backstreet, a second, an alleyway and then another that leads nowhere, where the buildings overhang and block out the light.

‘It’s not very—’ Wat starts to say (nice, presumably, and it isn’t), but Geoffrey doesn’t care.

His body is on fire with finally finally finally as he pushes Wat against the wall and kisses him open-mouthed, and Wat gasps against him, the sound swallowed between them. It is insane to want somebody this much but Geoffrey has given up caring or trying to understand himself: his body needs this, for whatever reason, needs Wat enthusiastic against him as he pushes back, hard grip of hands and turning them. Geoffrey’s back to the wall and Wat’s mouth is at his neck, both of them breathing hard and animal. Wat’s saying something but it’s impossible to hear. Geoffrey tries to hold him still, hand at the back of his neck, and then he hears it, Wat repeating the words over and over like a litany, ‘I want you to come in my mouth.’

He doesn’t need to be asked twice.

…

For the next couple of days, they go on moving around each other, and once or twice it happens the same way: snatched moments when they are drunk or drinking; semi-public, risky, over fast. The five of them have rooms above the same tavern, close to the tournament grounds, but they are all so much together that going into either of their rooms is dismissed without even being discussed. Too risky.

Then Will is arrested.

After they’ve dragged him from the stadium, after Geoffrey has shaken free of the soldiers that gripped his arms hard enough to bruise, he is alone with Wat, somehow, in the road outside the grounds, stunned into silence by the suddenness and brutality of it. They’ve lost Kate and Roland in the fray. Geoffrey’s about to suggest they go and find them, but then he sees Wat’s face, and it is so – awful.

‘Come on,’ he says.

They go back together in silence. Wat doesn’t ask or suggest anything, he just follows. They’re heading the opposite way to the crowds, people pouring out onto the streets to find out what’s happening, what the fuss is, rumour mill working fast to turn all Will’s golden legend into so much dirt. There’s a taste in Geoffrey’s mouth like he’s been drinking bitter wine. The tavern is just about empty and they climb its stairs without speaking.

‘In,’ says Geoffrey, holding the door to his room open. Wat does as he is told in silence.

With the door closed behind them, they look at one another properly and Geoffrey realises with a shock that Wat is crying, or has been. His eyes are red-rimmed. He looks away, ashamed, and Geoffrey says, ‘No, come on,’ something matronly in his voice that would be funny if it wasn’t all so horrendous.

They climb into Geoffrey’s rickety single bed - Geoffrey first, Wat following - and in the fading light of the worst day of his life, he holds Wat in perfect silence in this bare little room above a pub. Geoffrey tries not to wonder if he’s doing this because he wants to hold Will. It’s all thick as treacle in his mind and impossible to contemplate. He doesn’t think it’s that, or only that, but who knows? Certainly he feels as though his heart will break.

They’ve never talked properly about Will (not that they have spent their time alone talking, these last few days) and there is still no language for it; Geoffrey doesn’t want to talk about his own love for Will and he certainly doesn’t want to hear about Wat’s. But it’s good to lie in silence and feel together, to know that Wat feels it too: the cold and terrible unfairness of the world, which will always be as it is, too small.

Geoffrey has one hand in Wat’s hair and the other round his shoulders, Wat’s breathing soft against his collarbone. ‘It will be all right,’ he says quietly. He hadn’t been meaning to talk at all. ‘It will be all right. It will be all right.’

...

When Geoffrey wakes a few hours later, the room is darker and he is alone. There’s no moment of horror: the knowledge that Will is in prison has been there while he slept, and he lies still for a moment, feeling his way around it like a sore tooth. He has awoken to find the world just as he left it. How awful. Then he remembers Wat, and sits up, looking around, as though he might be in a corner or lying on the floor.

He’s gone of course, and no wonder: whatever had been tacitly agreed between them these last few days hadn’t extended much further than alleyway fucks. However you skin it, Geoffrey crossed a line. He lies back down, discomfort deep in his bones, and wonders what to do next.

It’s impossible to tell what time it is. He doesn’t feel hungry, but that isn’t surprising, his stomach churned up with bitterness and misery. He knows he ought to get up, do something, anything, about any of it, but he can’t bring himself to, so he lies still and considers going back to sleep. Then the door opens, and Wat is there with a tin mug in each hand.

Geoffrey sits up, stunned. ‘You came back,’ he says. His voice is rough with disuse.

Wat looks mystified. ‘Yeah?’ he says and puts the mugs on the table. Barley tea from downstairs, Geoffrey can smell it.

‘Thanks,’ he says, but Wat carries on talking.

‘We need to go and find the others soon,’ he says. ‘Make a plan.’ He looks bright-eyed but not as miserable. ‘They’ll have Will in the stocks come morning, so—'

‘Come here, first.’ Geoffrey holds out a hand.

Wat comes over slowly and stands there for a moment looking uncertain. ‘What?’ he says. Then, getting no response, takes Geoffrey’s hand in his own and threads their fingers together. Something passes unspoken between them, and then Wat is in his lap and they are kissing as though starved. It’s as intense as every other time but different, some quality in it subtly altered – perhaps it is having the chance to take their time and not taking it, perhaps it is something else. Either way, Geoffrey drags Wat down on top of him, every inch of them pressed against each other, trying for quiet in his single bed but both of them hard and fucking into each other, indiscriminate and biting.

He drags Wat’s clothes off him, the first time he has ever done it, and then somehow he is on top with Wat beneath him. The bruises on his chest are fading. Soon they will be gone. Geoffrey traces the outline of one with a fingertip. They’ve slowed abruptly out of their cart-down-a-hill rhythm, desperation shifting into something else, and Wat takes hold of Geoffrey’s wrist to still his hand. They look at each other.

‘Don’t do that kind of thing anymore,’ says Geoffrey. It’s not what he expected to say.

Surprise flickers on Wat’s face, eyelashes fluttering. There’s something strangely gentle about him close-up, pale and freckled. ‘Okay,’ he says. Like it’s that simple. Then he lifts himself up from his elbows and kisses Geoffrey slow and deliberate, reaching down to palm his cock through his clothes until Geoffrey makes a wanting sound into his mouth.

Suddenly Wat pulls back. ‘Our tea will get cold,’ he says. Geoffrey tell if it’s genuine or a wind-up, but then they are both laughing, until Geoffrey feels too weak with it to hold himself up and so he lies with his face against Wat’s shoulder, feeling the laughter in his ribs, in his broken heart, improbable and lovely.

‘I didn’t say stop,’ says Wat.

‘It’s okay,’ says Geoffrey. ‘We can drink the tea first. We have all night.’

‘Right.’ They look at each other. The wanting and the fear are both still there. ‘And then,’ he goes on slowly, ‘in the morning--’

‘In the morning, it will be the morning,’ says Geoffrey. He kisses Wat’s shoulder, bites him softly where it meets his neck. ‘We’ll fix it,’ he says. ‘I don’t know how. But we will.’ And saying it, he’s surprised to realise it’s true.

‘I believe you,’ says Wat. ‘Come here.’

They say nothing for a while longer. Eventually, the tea goes cold.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you liked this story, you can also reblog it [on Tumblr](https://the-omnishambles.tumblr.com/post/189328909413/nothing-ventured-omnishambles-a-knights-tale).


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